Emory's Commission on the Liberal Arts (CoLA) has taken on new leadership on and will begin working toward establishing the liberal arts on campus.
Robyn Fivush, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and CoLA's current chair, is replacing former Provost Earl Lewis, who began the effort last year.
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Public Health and previous CoLA Co-Chair Claire Sterk said the commission is making liberal education "a key domain of focus."
The commission plans to develop three subcommittees that will focus on and are subsequently named "Learning through Instruction," "Learning through Innovation" and "Learning through Integration," Fivush announced at the Fall Forum on the Liberal Arts held Monday in Cox Hall Ballroom. The subcommittees' names represent the fact that learning is at the heart of any university and its decision making, she said.
According to Fivush, the commission wants representative yet manageable subcommittees that contain about 15 members each. These subcommittees will meet to discuss mandates and develop goals for liberal arts on Emory's campus, working closely with the Executive Council, a group of board members who are in charge of general university affairs, she said.
The Fall Forum "emphasize[d] the importance of faculty, staff and student voice in the process of change," according to its website. The forum outlined Emory's aim to move forward with the discussion of liberal arts and stated that this was to start with CoLA's subcommittees.
The forum's panel consisted of University President James W. Wagner, Executive Vice President for Health Affairs Wright Caughman, Dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences Robin Forman, Senior Vice President and Dean of Campus Life Ajay Nair, and Board of Trustees member Laura Hardman. Although many topics were covered, the audience's questions predominately concerned the future steps of the commission.
Katherine Bryant, a fifth-year neuroscience graduate student, asked the panel how this forum related to the department changes announced last fall and how it would affect their futures. In response, Wagner promoted the idea that to reach its highest potential, we must focus on areas where we may "excel" and therefore must work "within the confines of the resources we have."
Caughman added later that it is not a question of doing more with less, but is rather about doing our best with what Emory has.
Other topics discussed included Emory's generosity in practice, the importance of residence and graduate students to the liberal arts at Emory and the shift in educational systems due to last year's program cuts.
After the forum, College senior David Mullins said he wondered whether or not liberal arts professors were part of the conversation.
Owame Phillips, an eighth-year Emory graduate student, said that he felt this forum was a positive opportunity for starting dialogue but was a missed opportunity as the conversation felt more like a "back-patting" exercise than a productive discussion.
Forman, on the other hand, said the forum was not meant to be an answer to all questions but rather the beginning of a dialogue.
Wagner agreed with Forman's statements and said that the forum was more of a way to open discussion than a way to solve every problem that has arisen in the past surrounding Emory's liberal arts.
Wagner added that he hopes the depth of questions asked at the forum mirrored the importance of the issues present surrounding liberal arts at Emory. "We really don't know what the outcome is going to be," Fivush said at the closing of the event, adding that "this will be a year of discovery" and that she is excited to engage in this process.
– By Naomi Maisel
